What does the Wall Street Journal op-ed page suggest, if what must happen doesnt? They arent telling. The hawks want the 6th Fleet sent to nearby waters ... and then? If they want it there to possibly wage war, they wont say. Its as if they want Vladimir Putin to think America is willing to use force on Ukraines behalf without actually risking U.S. force. What if that bluff were called? The U.S. could start a war that would leave us much worse off. Or we could not, which really would suggest that if we sent a bunch of naval assets to Taiwan or Japan, China shouldnt assume that were necessarily willing to use them. Im no more a foreign-policy expert than the hawks who urged the ongoing Cuba embargo, the invasion of Iraq, or the failed surge in Afghanistan, so perhaps Im missing wisdom theyve never demonstrated before. But it seems to me that theres a strangeness to what these people urge. Theyre the first to tout the importance of American credibility, which they view as at risk of substantial collapse in every world crisis. Yet theyre eager for us to engage in geopolitical bluffing. Or if theyre not bluffing—if they want to mobilize the 6th Fleet, admit Ukraine to NATO, and fight a war with Russia if those gambits fail—they should have the intellectual honesty to say so, rather than writing as if mere shows of strength always work. Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic theatlantic/international/archive/2014/03/what-if-vladimir-putin-called-us-hawks-bluff-in-ukraine/284191/
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 03:04:02 +0000